Landscape changes in Banff National Park prior to the passing of the Forest Reserves and Parks Act of 1911, viz. before protection. Mostly changes in vegetation.

In this Banff history book, Eleanor Luxton, the daughter of one of Banff’s pioneers, presents us with a labour of love – a comprehensive history of Banff National Park from its geological birth, through its exploration and settlement, to its growth as Canada’s first National Park. This story of Rocky Mountains Park is a sensitive portrayal of the natural and human history of the Banff area, weaving together the romantic adventure of the earliest exploration and settlement with the realities of World Wars, depressions, and government influences. It will most surely command rapt attention from both the casual reader and the historian. Publisher's note: Written in 1975 as an historical account and reprinted in 2008, Banff: Canada’s First National Park has itself become a piece of the park’s history. Respecting this significance, we have strived to replicate the original book by re-creating the original cover, leaving the text as it appeared in 1975 (complete with references to places that no longer exist, such as the Buffalo Paddock), and including photographs from Luxton’s private collection.

"This book documents the changing tenets of landscape preservation and species protection in preserves of the United States and Canada through a capacious study of canine history."--BOOK JACKET.

Alberta's iconic river has been dammed and plumbed, made to spin hydro-electric turbines, and used to cleanse Calgary. Artificial lakes in the mountains rearrange its flow; downstream weirs and ditches divert it to irrigate the parched prairie. Far from being wild, the Bow is now very much a human product: its fish are as manufactured as its altered flow, changed water quality, and newly stabilized and forested banks. The River Returns brings the story of the Bow River's transformation full circle through an exploration of the recent revolution in environmental thinking and regulation that has led to new limits on what might be done with and to the river. Rivers have been studied from many perspectives, but too often the relationship between nature and people, between rivers and the cultures that have grown up beside them, have been separated. The River Returns illuminates the ways in which humans, both inadvertently and consciously, have interacted with nature to make the Bow.